Anyway you see it, this is a great perspective about how we should see missions. And remember I didn’t write it, so don’t get mad at me, although, I guess, it is totally legit to be mad at me for agreeing with it. So agree, or disagree, it will not make it any less true.

If you are interested in getting this book, visit DesiringGod.org or click on the link below to be taken to the page for that book. You might also want to check out their resource library which does have a lot of books available to read through a PDF for free, can’t beat that.

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (

Psalm 97:1

97:1 The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad! (ESV)

). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (

Psalm 67:3-4

3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!

4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah (ESV)

).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (

Psalm 104:34

34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.

Psalm 104:34

2 I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. (ESV)

). Missions begins and ends in worship.”

–John Piper
Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 2nd Ed.

Hmmm. That last paragraph seems to say what I have been saying all along, although much more eloquently, that people who enjoy Jesus will bring Jesus, the true need, to the nations, while people who do not enjoy Him as ultimate can not be effective in bringing Him to them because their pleasure is not in Him, but rather in other things they worship as ultimate. So, in order to effectively reach the lost we must treasure Christ as ultimate in our lives, or we risk bringing our prosperity to them as blessing instead of giving them what they really need: Jesus.

I don’t think that there is a worse message that the church supports other than the idea that all of the worlds hurting and pain can be cured by the blessing called America. We think that all the world could be fixed if we could just export our culture. We think that taking vacation time from work (so that we still get paid) and heading over seas for a weeks worth of work in a third world country is going to dramatically change the lives of people living in poverty. But the convenience of our culture makes it easy to slip on our iPods to drown out the cries of the hurting, miles away, as we lounge by the pool in our upscale hotels.

My point has nothing to do with iPods or iPhones or any other iProduct. It is this: if Americans can’t decide what is truly important to them, if Christians don’t truly believe that Jesus is more important to them than their stuff, then how can we really change the world. If we see simply people who have less money than us and houses that are falling apart and have pity on them for that, but don’t see their infinitely greater spiritual need and tell them of the hope of Christ, we have failed.

The call of Christ is to desire Him above all else and to share the hope that we have in Him with others. If necessary, we are called to sell all that we have and love people for His glory. And we can do this because He is what satisfies. So when the church won’t stand up and say that, one could argue that if we can’t truly stand for Christ amongst our plenty, that it is very unlikely that we will stand for Him amongst the little of the poor? Is it that we feel sorry for them that they do not have electricity, or is it that we truly, deep down, understand that it is Christ who can satisfy them and that He is the most important thing that we can share with them?

The gospel isn’t about making lives more successful, it is about hope for eternity, hope in the midst of loss and poverty. I saw this video the other day and have been haunted by it. I think there are too few people standing up and saying the things that John Piper says in this video. And I pray that people would truly see the value of Christ, and that our love for the lost and hurting would be far stronger than our love for gadgets which fades as soon as something else catches our eyes.

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